Being activist is not rolling rocks up hills, or digging useless ditches, or blowing into the wind, o…

Being activist is not rolling rocks up hills, or digging useless ditches, or blowing into the wind, or opposing gravity. It is part of the single most important, courageous, and productive undertaking in all human history, one with deep roots and a winning future.

Do those who think resigning makes sense really want to say that the abolitionists were wrong, that workers in daily struggles for better wages and conditions have all been wrong, that the advocates of women and blacks and Latinos being people were wrong, that seeking liberation has been and will be wrong?

Do they really want to assert that wage slavery is forever? That it violates nature and reason that human beings should control their own lives rather than most people being subject to the domineering will of a very few?

Do they really want to say people can’t conceive and implement systems in which poverty and starvation and death by preventable disease and denial of dignity and stature are eradicated?

On what grounds, do they proclaim such pessimism?

Once upon a time, when Pharaohs whipped slaves into building their tombs, or when emperors dragooned peasants into fighting lions for imperial entertainment, or when slave owners lynched growers into subordination, was it desirable to resign from opposition? So why is now any different? Does someone, somewhere, suddenly have a crystal ball which says that no matter how hard humanity struggles, there will be no better future?